How Gotham Will Introduce Batman In Season 4

Now that Gotham is three seasons in, fans know full well the approach that showrunner Bruno Heller is taking in dispensing the Batman mythos to TV audiences, and it's quite a cacophonous approach. But while it may seem like the Fox drama is intent on only bringing out the endless line of Rogues from Batman's comic book history, actor David Mazouz has revealed that Gotham Season 4 will apparently do more than every before to introduce Bruce to his Dark Knight alter ego.

Bruce really is taking on this vigilante persona and all the things that go along with that. Whether it be creating another persona, a public persona, that's also definitely going to be a major part of Bruce's journey this year. His relationship as this other person. Batman is coming. Absolutely.

In the back half of Season 3, Gotham took definite and easily perceptible strides towards bringing Bruce closer to the vigilante persona that has served as a comic book icon for over 75 years. From his time with the Shaman that mystically helped to numb him to the pain he still felt over his parents death, to his meeting with Ra's al Ghul that caused him to straight up stab Alfred, Bruce got a lot closer to villainy than heroism, but he thankfully ended things on a positive note. The finale capped off with Bruce stopping a crime resembling his parent's murders, and then standing atop a building in a stance that Batman fans are super-familiar with.

With Bruce's personality getting muted and splintered by the Shaman, it's quite appropriate that David Mazouz told ComicBook.com that Bruce will possibly be taking on Batman as a new persona in Season 4. The actor brings up making his vigilante persona public, which could be taken in very interesting directions. Perhaps Batman won't actually be the first identity Bruce takes on in his evolution of the Dark Knight, and with him striving for something closer to Arrow's The Hood. (It would be a strange twist to see a Batman story borrowing from Arrow for once.) Or maybe the publicized Batman would be the flip side of how Jerome used cameras to make Gotham City aware of his mayhem. I'd be down with watching Mazouz cutting a bunch of WWE-esque promos calling out Gotham City's baddies.

In the not so distant past, David Mazouz wasn't so high on the idea of bringing Batman into Gotham early, or at least before there was enough time to collapse Gotham City to a point where Batman was needed. As well, it's been bandied about since the beginning that Batman's official arrival would be how the show ended. But now that's all changed, and Mazouz says he was actually worried the creative team might want to backtrack on the Bat-advances made in Season 3. In his words:

Another thing I was worried about was we were going to get to Season 4 and the writers were going to go, 'You know, I think we took it a little too far too fast. Let's backtrack.' And the exact opposite happened. The trajectory is just continuing in that direction. I would say, I would know it's accelerating in that direction. It's not going to stop.

Unfortunately, there's still quite a bit of waiting to go before Bruce Wayne is back in our lives on a weekly basis, as Gotham won't return to viewers for Season 4 until Thursday, September 28, at 8:00 p.m. ET. To see what other shows are debuting and returning to TV in the coming months, head to our summer premiere schedule.